Joanna Russ: The Female Man

“Take me to your leader.”

… a tall blonde woman in blue pajamas who appeared standing on Colonel Q----’s desk, as if from nowhere. She took out what appeared to be a weapon… No answer to our questions. The Colonel has kept a small revolver in the top drawer of his desk since the summer riots. He produced it. She would not answer our questions. I believe at that point Miss X----, the Colonel’s secretary, walked into the room, quite unaware of what was going on. Luckily Y-----, Z-----, Q————-, R———— , and myself kept our heads. She then said, “I am from the future.”

QUESTIONER: Miss X---- said that?

ANSWER: No, not Miss X----. The—the stranger.

QUESTIONER: Are you sure she appeared standing on Colonel Q----’s desk?

ANSWER: No, I’m not sure. Wait. Yes I am. She was sitting on it.

INTERVIEWER: It seems odd to all of us, Miss Evason, that in venturing into such—well, such absolutely unknown territory—that you should have come unarmed with anything except a piece of string. Did you expect us to be peaceful?

JE: No. No one is, completely.

INTERVIEWER: Then you should have armed yourself.

JE: Never.

INTERVIEWER: But an armed person, Miss Evason, is more formidable than one who is helpless. An armed person more readily inspires fear.

JE: Exactly.

That woman lived with me for a month. I don’t mean in my house. Janet Evason on the radio, the talk shows, the newspapers, newsreels, magazines, ads even. With somebody I suspect was Miss Dadier appearing in my bedroom late one night.

“I’m lost.” She meant: what world is this?

“F’godsakes, go out in the hall , will you?”

But she melted away through the Chinese print on the wall, presumably into the empty, carpeted, three-in-the-morning corridor outside. Some people never stick around. In my dream somebody wanted to know where Miss Dadier was. I woke at about four and went to the bathroom for a glass of water; there she was on the other side of the bathroom mirror, semaphoring frantically. She made her eyes big and peered desperately into the room, both fists pressed against the glass.

“He’s not here,” I said. “Go away.”

She mouthed something unintelligible. The room sang:

I wet a washcloth and swiped at the mirror with it. She winced. Turn out the light, said my finer instincts, and so I turned out the light. She remained lit up. Dismissing the whole thing as the world’s aberration and not mine, I went back to bed.

“Janet?” she said.

Janet picked up Jeannine at the Chinese New Festival. Miss Dadier never allowed anyone to pick her up but a woman was different, after all; it wasn’t the same thing. Janet was wearing a tan raincoat. Cal had gone round the corner to get steamed buns in a Chinese luncheonette and Miss Evason asked the meaning of a banner that was being carried through the street.

“Happy Perseverance, Madam Chiang,” said Jeannine.

Then they chatted about the weather.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” said Jeannine suddenly. (She put her hands over her ears and made a face.) “But that’s different,” she said.

Janet Evason made another suggestion. Jeannine looked interested and willing to understand, though a little baffled.

“Cal’s in there,” said Jeannine loftily. “I couldn’t go in there.” She spread her fingers out in front of her like two fans. She was prettier than Miss Evason and glad of it; Miss Evason resembled a large boy scout with flyaway hair.

“Are you French?”

“Ah!” said Miss Evason, nodding.

“I’ve never been to France,” said Jeannine languidly; “I often thought I’d—well, I just haven’t been.” Don’t stare at me . She slouched and narrowed her eyes. She wanted to put one hand up affectedly to shade her forehead; she wanted to cry out, “Look! There’s my boyfriend Cal,” but there wasn’t a sign of him, and if she turned to the grocery-store window it would be full of fish’s intestines and slabs of dried fish; she knew that.

It—would—make—her— sick ! (She stared at a carp with its guts coming out.) I’m shaking all over .

“Who did your hair?” she asked Miss Evason, and when Miss Evason didn’t understand:

“Who streaked your hair so beautifully?”

“Time,” and Miss Evason laughed and Miss Dadier laughed. Miss Dadier laughed beautifully, gloriously, throwing her head back; everyone admired the curve of Miss Dadier’s throat. Eyes turned. A beautiful body and personality to burn . “I can’t possibly go with you,” said Miss Dadier magnificently, her fur coat swirling; “There’s Cal, there’s New York, there’s my work, New York in springtime, I can’t leave, my life is here,” and the spring wind played with her hair.

Crazy Jeannine nodded, petrified.

“Good,” said Janet Evason. “We’ll get you a leave from work.” She whistled and around the corner at a dead run came two plainclothes policemen in tan raincoats: enormous, jowly, thick-necked, determined men who will continue running—at a dead heat—through the rest of this tale. But we won’t notice them. Jeannine looked in astonishment from their raincoats to Miss Evason’s raincoat. She did not approve at all .

“So that’s why it doesn’t fit,” she said. Janet pointed to Jeannine for the benefit of the cops.

“Boys, I’ve got one.”

The Chinese New Festival was invented to celebrate the recapture of Hong Kong from the Japanese. Chiang Kai-shek died of heart disease in 1951 and Madam Chiang is premieress of the New China. Japan, which controls the mainland, remains fairly quiet since it lacks the backing of—for example—a reawakened Germany, and if any war occurs, it will be between the Divine Japanese Imperiality and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (there are twelve). Americans don’t worry much. Germany still squabbles occasionally with Italy or England; France (disgraced in the abortive putsch of ’42) is beginning to have trouble with its colonial possessions. Britain—wiser—gave India provisional self-government in 1966.

The Depression is still world-wide.

(But think—only think!—what might have happened if the world had not so luckily slowed down, if there had been a really big war, for big wars are forcing-houses of science, economics, politics; think what might have happened, what might not have happened. It’s a lucky world. Jeannine is lucky to live in it.

She doesn’t think so. )

(Cal, who came out of the Chinese luncheonette just in time to see his girl go off with three other people, did not throw the lunch buns to the ground in a fit of exasperated rage and stamp on them. Some haunted Polish ancestor looked out of his eyes. He was so thin and slight that his ambitions shone through him: I’ll make it some day, baby. I’ll be the greatest. He sat down on a fire plug and began to eat the buns.

She’ll have to come back to feed her cat.)

This is the lecture. If you don’t like it, you can skip to the next chapter. Before Janet arrived on this planet

I was moody, ill-at-ease, unhappy, and hard to be with. I didn’t relish my breakfast. I spent my whole day combing my hair and putting on make-up. Other girls practiced with the shot-put and compared archery scores, but I—indifferent to javelin and crossbow, positively repelled by horticulture and ice hockey—all I did was